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In leaving abusive situations, women should seek help

A moving truck sat idle on the street of a home in Shoreview, Minn., yesterday, surrounded by police cars. As a police helicopter hovered noisily above, police poured over the home to investigate multiple shootings that left two people dead and two others wounded.

The truck was there because Nancy Sullivan, 57, was moving out of the house she shared with her longtime boyfriend, Johnny Lee Simpson, 65.

Police are investigating the deaths as a murder and suicide and consider Simpson the suspect.

Officials haven't released many details about the crime, but they say while the move was in process it appears Simpson shot Sullivan and wounded Kathleen Maureen Fay, 29, and Tony Sewell Brown, 28, both of St. Paul.

Police said they have not responded to any calls involving domestic violence at the home in the past five years.

But in cases where there has been a pattern of abuse, a break-up can be dangerous, as is clear from a recent spate of tragically similar killings.

Six other Twin Cities-area women appear to have been killed this year as they tried to leave their boyfriends or husbands.

Advocates for victims of domestic abuse say most women leave bad situations safely, but the threat of violence escalates when a separation is imminent.

"A victim of domestic violence is at a 75 percent greater risk of being murdered or seriously injured when they attempt to leave," said Shelley Johnson Cline, executive director of the St. Paul Domestic Abuse Intervention Project.

Johnson said there are a number of warning signs an escalation in violence may be coming.

"Jealousy is huge," she said, and men may grow increasingly controlling. "It's that idea of feeling that they have nothing to lose."

With that in mind, Cline said it's important for women who want to get out of abusive situations to have a plan to leave, and it's best to craft that plan with police or advocates for battered women. The plan, she said, should address key questions:

"What is her access to help? Does she have a cell phone? Does she have a place to go if the violence escalates? What about the children? How do you get out? Are there weapons in the house? All those different factors we talk about."

Involving friends or family is helpful but Cline said it's best to bring in professionals, and also police.

In two cases this year, women who were leaving their partners did have family members present, and those people were drawn into the escalating violence.

Cline said that above all else, women should not hesitate to call 911 if they feel endangered.
"When you think violence is escalating," she said, "trust your gut."

Cline's organization has received more calls recently from women who are spurred to action by reports in the media of women killed by their husbands or boyfriends. She said the callers say they don't want to be the next victims.

But Cline doubts any of the perpetrators are copying the actions of others.